Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (3 page)

I already know ‘You Can’t Do That’ by heart and sing it to myself as I trail my hand along the privet hedges, pulling off the leaves and digging my thumbnail into the rubbery green flesh every time I get to the chorus, ‘Ooooh, you can’t do that!’ I can still hear John Lennon’s voice in my head. Not a scary rumble like my dad’s, but familiar and approachable, a bit nasal, like mine. That’s it! He’s like me, except a
boy
. Through tree-lined streets, past the terraced houses, I float, catching glimpses of those other, happier, families through the illuminated squares of their little brick boxes. But today I’m not jealous, I’m not looking in windows for comfort any more. Under lamp posts and cherry trees I glide, stepping on the cracks between the paving stones and squashing pink blossom under my Clarks sandals – I no longer have time for childish things. Until today I thought life was always going to be made up of sad, angry grown-ups, dreary music, stewed meat, boiled vegetables, church and school. Now everything’s changed: I’ve found the meaning of life, hidden in the grooves of a flat black plastic disc. I promise myself I will get to that new world, but I don’t know how to make it happen. What, or who, could possibly help me get closer to that parallel universe? I look up and down the street as if someone might pop out of a doorway and whisk me away, but all I can see are houses, houses, houses, stretching off into infinity. I feel sick. I hate them.

7 CHIC

1965

It’s a Sunday afternoon, I have long, straight, light brown hair and a fringe tickling my eyelashes. I’m wearing a purple corduroy mini skirt, my grey school jumper, knee-length white socks and black school shoes. I am eleven years old and my dad and I are walking along Muswell Hill Broadway, past the Wimpy Bar, where I always stop and look longingly at the faded, greenish photos of Wimpy burgers and chips in the window. I’ve only been in there once. I loved everything about it. The red plastic chairs all joined together, the plain white tiled walls, which look so modern and clean compared to my home. The chips, so thin there’s no room for any potato inside, just crispy golden sticks. The rubbery meat of the burger, I liked that it wasn’t like real meat, didn’t look like part of an animal. My teeth bounced off the brown disc in a very satisfying way. It was like eating a toy, made-up and fun. Fantasy food. Perfect for a picky eater like me, uniform, bland, no surprises.

Next we pass the toyshop, where I choose my Christmas present every year, and the school-uniform shop, where we buy the maroon skirt, yellow blouse and grey jumper every September. Muswell Hill is my universe. Today we’ve been to Cherry Tree Woods to play on the swings and Dad has bought me a
Jackie
comic. I feel relaxed with him for the first time in ages, I slip my arm through his and say:

‘Daddy, I want to be a pop singer when I grow up.’

There, it’s out, I’ve dared to voice my dream, to say it out loud. Dad is the only adult I know who has some interest in music, even if it is Petula Clark, and now I’ve told him, I’ve taken the first step towards making my dream real. Dad will know what to do, how to get me started, point me in the right direction.

‘You’re not chic enough.’

I don’t know what the word
chic
means but I know what
he
means. I understand from the tone of his voice that I’m having ideas about myself that are way above my looks, capabilities and charms, and I believe him. He must be right, he’s my father.

Dad and I walk along in silence. I think,
He didn’t ask me if I can sing
– but obviously that doesn’t matter. I’m just not chic enough.

8 JOHN AND YOKO

I grew up with John Lennon at my side, like a big brother. When I first heard him sing, I had no idea what he looked like, what he wore, that there was a group of cool-looking guys in the band with him: nothing. The music and the words said it all.

Year by year, he unfolded to me, and he did not disappoint. He just went on getting better and better. He kept changing his clothes and hair, experimented with drugs, spiritual enlightenment, religion and psychology, and the music got more sophisticated, record by record. Then he met Yoko Ono. At last there was a girl in my life who intrigued and inspired me. The English press hated Yoko, but I was fascinated by her and so were my friends. We thought she was fantastic. She wore a white mini dress and white knee-length boots to her wedding. I read her book,
Grapefruit
, she had ideas that I had never encountered before; her thoughts and her concepts were like mind-altering drugs to me. A poem would consist of one word. Simple doodles were art. Her philosophical statements and instructions made me think differently about how to live my life. I liked that the Beatles – well, John and Paul (who was with Jane Asher then) – dated women with ideas, who had interesting faces and strong personalities (the Stones were all dating dazzling beauties). When John and Yoko took their clothes off for the
Two Virgins
picture, their sweet, normal bodies all naked and wobbly were shocking because they were so imperfect. It was an especially brave move for Yoko; her body was dissected and derided by the press. But I got it. At last, a girl being interesting and brave.

I thought John was funny, clever and wise. The only problem with him being my muse was that he was so open about his emotions – he wrote and talked about his mother, Yoko, even his
aunt
, all the time, acknowledging how important women were in his life – so I assumed all boys were like this – and to my huge disappointment, almost none of them were or are.

9 GONE

1965

My mother, sister and I arrive back home on a Saturday afternoon in late August after staying with my aunty for two weeks. Mum and I dump our plastic bags and rucksacks in the hall whilst my sister races upstairs to say hello to Dad. We hear her charging in and out of rooms and banging doors: she’s very excited, it’s the first time we’ve been away for years. Then her voice, a little panicky, shouts from the top of the stairs:

‘He’s gone!’

I run up, Mum follows, all three of us stand staring at the door to my father’s study, which is always kept locked, but today is hanging open. We are never allowed in there, so it takes us a moment to shuffle forward and peep round the door. His precious study is completely empty. The wooden desk with sharp corners he made, the turquoise Anglepoise lamp, the books on engineering, the ties hanging on the back of the door, all gone. We walk back into the hallway and look around. Pictures have disappeared from the walls, the big trunk with all the photographs has vanished, and gradually we realise loads of stuff is missing – it feels like a robbery. My sister and I look at Mum, waiting for her to make sense of it. We have no doubt she will make sense of it: she makes sense of everything.

‘Oh thank goodness for that, he’s gone,’ she says, smiling. ‘What a relief.’

My sister and I laugh nervously. We are not convinced. We don’t take our eyes off Mum’s face for a second, looking for a flicker of doubt in her expression. When we’re sure that she’s OK, we relax and agree, yes, it’s great that the big hairy nuisance has gone. It’s all perfectly normal and right. Let’s go and make a cup of tea!

Mum must have been so shocked to discover Dad had done a bunk – even if things were going badly, it’s never nice to be deserted. I wonder how much self-control and acting (mothers are very underrated actors) it took for her to quickly arrange her features into a composed expression and modify her voice so she sounded calm and reassuring. Or maybe it was all planned? Maybe it was arranged that we’d go away for two weeks whilst Dad packed up and left. When I ask Mum she refuses to talk about it. I don’t want to upset her, so I’ll just have to live with the not knowing.

10 THE KINKS

The Kinks were a guiding light to me when I was young. I went to the same schools as them, junior, secondary and art school. As I went into Year One of secondary school at eleven years old, the bassist Pete Quaife’s younger brother was just leaving, so there was quite a big age gap, but I followed in their wake, and I was very aware of every move they made ahead of me.

Everyone in Muswell Hill seemed to have a vague connection to them, even my mum. She worked at Crouch End library and Dave Davies’s girlfriend – a beautiful natural blonde – worked there too. Mum used to come home with tales of how volatile Dave was.

In junior school I’d ask the teachers, ‘Did you teach them? What were they like? Do you think you might have any of their old exercise books at home?’ I was extremely curious, much more so than I was in any lessons. I didn’t aspire to be a musician – there wasn’t that equality at the time, it was inconceivable that a girl could cross over into male territory and be in a band.

When I got to secondary school, people were much more interested in them: the older boys dressed like them, long hair in side or front partings, very low-cut hipster trousers – we called them bumsters – and stack-heeled boots. The young male teachers dressed like that too. To Muswell Hill kids, the Kinks were heroes, they came from the same place as us and they made something of themselves.

11 SHIT AND BLOOD

Shitting and bleeding. Always had a problem with shit and blood. The English love to talk about shitting, so other nationalities can skip this bit. Also any potential boyfriend, anyone who fancies me, please skip this bit too.

When I was four I started school, a year earlier than normal, I don’t know why. Everyone in the class was a year older than me – a couple of years later I had to be kept back a year to be with my own age group. I kicked and screamed from the moment my mother and I reached the school gate, all the way through the corridors, to the door of my classroom. Every morning I did this, because I was scared: I didn’t want to leave my sister and my mother. It was too soon, I was traumatised, but I couldn’t express this in any way except through tears.

Because I was so young and so shy, I was too nervous to put my hand up and ask to be excused to go to the lavatory during class, so after trying to hold it in as long as possible, I did it in my pants. The choice between raising my hand and my voice whilst the teacher was talking or quietly soiling myself was not an easy one, but I chose the option I could bear. I was such a baby that I didn’t think anyone would notice. This happened often. When I got home, Mum would be sympathetic, clean me up and give me a cuddle – except one day she didn’t. This time she was cross; there was no sympathy, she stormed out to the garden, picked up a rough stick and scraped the poo off my bum and legs, telling me that she’d had enough. That scraping really hurt my legs, my pride and my feelings. I never did it again.

I was a hypersensitive child – always watching and listening out for people’s moods and their fluctuations – and a small thing like the anticipation of school every morning would set me off with diarrhoea, right up until I was sixteen. I wasn’t bullied at school, thank god, it was just that tiny little things made me anxious, like if someone was walking behind me as I walked in – I was self-conscious, it made my gait stiffen and I couldn’t walk properly, that sort of thing.

My period started the day before my thirteenth birthday. I went ballistic. I howled like a banshee, I shouted, I slammed doors – I was furious, crazed, ranting and murderous for days. This thing that had happened to me was totally unacceptable. I hated it, I didn’t want it, but I had no control over it. I couldn’t bear to live if it meant going through life bleeding every month and being weak and compromised. It was so unfair.

I went on creating a scene every time I had a period for the next four years until they only appeared a couple of times a year. I don’t know if this was the triumph of my will over my body, or if it would have happened anyway. I thought my cycle was affected because I was so traumatised. I still went mad every time it showed up, even though it wasn’t that often. Having periods changed my personality: from the first one onwards I was resentful and angry inside, I felt cheated and I knew to the core of my being that life was unfair and boys had it easier than girls. A burning ball of anger and rebelliousness started to grow within me. It’s fuelled a lot of my work.

As I got older and started having sex, I would anxiously be looking for blood to come instead of wishing it away. Eventually I went on the pill, but was hopelessly undisciplined and always forgetting it. After the pill, I had the coil (it was called a Copper 7). I could feel it wedged there inside me at the top of my cervix. It hurt. I hobbled around for months, because I couldn’t be bothered to sort it out and I thought maybe this was what it was supposed to feel like. About a year later I went to the Marie Stopes Clinic in Soho – you could ask for a female doctor there – and they removed it. The doctor said it had become dislodged. I felt a wave of relief pass through my whole body as soon as the coil was removed, like I was returning to normal, the first time I’d felt like myself for a year.

Shit and blood (I’ll get on to them again later) have dominated and punctuated my life since I was a child. I’m still scared of blood, seeing it, not seeing it. ‘Is it old blood or fresh blood?’ the doctors always ask. Is there a right answer to that question?

12 TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL

1969–1971

Music lessons at my comprehensive school are so boring that we liven them up by trying to make the teacher run out of the room crying. We bang the desk lids and chant, ‘Out out out.’ Works every time. There are individual music lessons as well; we have the choice of nursery rhymes on the recorder or classical music on violin. Only the uncool kids play an instrument. I’m not interested. I don’t connect music lessons with the music I’m listening to, they’re worlds apart.

The only teacher who makes music interesting is the RE teacher, a Peter and Gordon lookalike with thick ginger hair, black horn-rimmed glasses and a polo-necked jumper. He tries to get us interested in moral issues through music. Sometimes we’re allowed to bring a record in and spend the lesson dissecting the lyrics. People bring in all sorts of stuff: King Crimson, Motown, ‘She’s Leaving Home’ by the Beatles, anti-Vietnam songs by Country Joe and the Fish, Hendrix and the Byrds.